Offset or digital printing? What type of printing is best for your project?

The growth of digital printing technology has brought technical advancements, more options, and exciting new features to today’s commercial printing. It’s also brought some confusion. An understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of digital printing and how those compare to traditional offset lithography is critical in making the right choice.

Most Common

Offset lithography is the most common high volume commercial printing technology. In offset printing, the desired print image is burned onto a plate and is then transferred (or offset) from the plate to a rubber blanket, and then to the printing surface. The lithographic process is based on the repulsion of oil and water. The image to be printed gets ink from ink rollers, while the non printing area attracts a film of water, keeping the non printing areas ink-free.

So … Which is Better

Well, it seems that depends.

Advantages of Digital

Shorter turnaround.

Every print is the same. More accurate counts, less waste and fewer variations, due to not having to balance ink and water during press run.

Cheaper low volume printing. While the unit cost of each piece may be higher than with offset printing, when setup costs are included digital printing provides lower per unit costs for very small print runs.

Advantages of Offset

High image quality.

Works on a wide range of printing surfaces including paper, wood, cloth, metal, leather, rough paper and plastic.

The unit cost goes down as the quantity goes up.

Quality and cost-effectiveness in high volume jobs. While today’s digital presses are close to the cost/benefit ratio of offset for high quality work, they are not yet able to compete with the volume an offset press can produce.

Many modern offset presses use computer-to-plate systems as opposed to the older computer-to-film work flows, further increasing quality.

Still Not Sure Which is Right?

Use this checklist to help decide:

Quantity. Offset printing has a front-end cost load. Short runs may have a high unit cost. But as quantities increase, the unit cost goes down with offset printing. Very short runs can be much more cost effective with digital printing; while larger quantities are likely to have a lower unit cost with offset printing. Furthermore when printing plastic cards at Perfect Cards you can merge projects with other clients and have even lower cost. Always ask us for a quote!

Printing medium. Do you need or want a special paper, finish or unusual printing surface, or unique size? The options are increasing continually for digital, but offset printing still offers the most flexibility.

Color. Digital presses use four-color process printing. If you need only black ink or one or two ink colors, offset printing may offer a more cost-effective solution. If you need four-color printing, digital may offer advantages in lower up-front costs.

More on color. If you’re planning to print using the Pantone® Matching System, offset printing will give you the best match, since it uses actual Pantone® ink. Digital printing simulates the color using a four-color matching process, so some digital printers may offer less accurate color matching on projects.

Proofing. Digital offers accurate proofs since you see an actual sample of the printed piece. Accurate color proofing for offset printing costs 140 EUR at Perfect Cards. You get 21 cards of accurate proof. You can even put 21 different projects in this test run.

Summary

Use the above checklist to help you decide and talk to your printer before submitting your job for advice on preparing files properly for the option you choose.